Month: April 2011

The Gun Industry Seems to be Doing Well

Regardless of what Josh Sugarman if the Violence Policy Center claim it appears as though gun companies are doing well. As Sebastian points out Smith and Wesson may appear to not be doing so well but it isn’t due to firearms:

Now to be fair, it wasn’t Smith & Wesson’s firearms division that misfired. In fact, revenue from the company’s primary division climbed to $79.2 million from $74.7 million a year earlier. The drag on Smith came from its perimeter security division, which saw a 38% drop in revenue as businesses and the government spent less on its perimeter security systems.

Oh and Ruger appears to be pretty happy as well:

In the case of Sturm Ruger, makers of the Ruger brand pistols, rifles and shotguns, the company has hit the earnings bullseye. In February, it posted fourth-quarter earnings of 30 cents a share on strong sales of $64.1 million. Both top- and bottom-line numbers bested Wall Street expectations.

And here Josh Sugarman promised all this anti-gunner buddies that the firearms industry was failing.

So That’s the Problem

I think Linoge found the problem with the United State’s tax code, in a chart no less. Also I’m going to drop this is a the quote of the day:

Our government has gotten greedier, our civil “servants” have gotten more interested in catching average citizens in arcane and byzantine laws and arbitrarily-changed rules, and every time we try to hold on to a little more of our hard-earned money – money that is literally a physical manifestation of our lives’ work – the government gets more creative in stealing it away from us.

How dare us stupid peasants try to keep some of our hard earned money!

In Lieu of Doing Something

The economy is in the toilet, the government has fucked the market so hard through laws and regulations that the chances of it recovering grow slimmer with each passing day, and unemployment keeps rising due to businesses failing. If you’re an unemployment agency what can you do? Obviously you can’t make jobs, only private industry can do that (I’m referring to actual jobs that create wealth). What would be the next best thing? How about giving $14,000 worth of capes to the unemployed:

Workforce Central Florida spent more than $14,000 on the red capes as part of its “Cape-A-Bility Challenge” public relations campaign. The campaign featured a cartoon character, “Dr. Evil Unemployment,” who needs to be vanquished.

That’s much easier than actually doing something.

My Investments Are Doing Well

It seems my investments are doing well:

In Hong Kong trade, gold hit a record $1,500.70 an ounce, which traders said was mainly due to Standard & Poor’s downgrade of its outlook on US debt.

Silver also touched a 31-year high of $44.34 an ounce.

When a country’s economy starts circling the toilet it’s common for those living in that country to seek an investment they can use to preserve their purchasing power. Sometimes this causes people to convert more of their wealth to another country’s money (for instance people in Zimbabwe moved to relying heavily on dollars and euros now that their country’s money is worthless). Another place to put money is in commodities.

Traditionally precious metals have done well in times of economic uncertainty. As uncertainty in fiat money increases the desire to place wealth into traditionally safe commodities increases. I’ve been investing in precious metals (mostly silver) for a while and have made pretty good bang on it. Well it would be more accurate to say it appears as though I’ve made pretty good bang on it but in truth I’ve mostly offset the effects of inflation and thus preserved my previous purchasing power.

With all that said it is likely that there will be a correction soon where the price of these metals will dip down. This is usually the smart time to buy because the prices will then continue to climb again. This is the trend that’s been going on for years at this point and will likely continue while the devaluation of the dollar continues.

Oh, and I was investing in precious metals way before Glenn Beck came on the air so don’t both accusing me of following him. I never even watched his shitty show.

What Do You Do When You’re Organization Is Shown to Be Ineffective

Let’s say you’re the head of an organization that has shown to be completely ineffective in its mission. You ineffectiveness has been demonstrated so often that you can no longer hide it and now donations from believers in your cause are drying up. What is one last desperate maneuver you can make in the hopes of staving off death? Well, if You’re the Brady Campaign you claim the President is passing super secret gun control laws:

During the meeting, President Obama dropped in and, according to Sarah Brady, brought up the issue of gun control, “to fill us in that it was very much on his agenda,” she said.

“I just want you to know that we are working on it,” Brady recalled the president telling them. “We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.”

This could be an effective strategy to drum up money because it makes it appear as though the Brady Campaign has influence with the President and the results of this influence will go unnoticed but will accomplish a desired goal. Basically this strategy would allow the Brady Campaign to make up success. Instead of having to point at newly passed laws to demonstrate success the Brady Campaign could use changing Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) regulations as “under the radar” gun control measures influenced by none other than the Brady Campaign. This isn’t as hard to do either as the ATF is rather schizophrenic about their regulations and like to change them on a whim without actually telling anybody.

Unfortunately for them pro-gun people keep a constant eye on them and call their organization out when they try to make idiotic maneuvers like this. Sorry Sarah Brady but we caught this little attempt to appear relevant.

Living Up to Their Reputation

Miguel over at Gun Free Zone noted something kind of funny; the deceptively named Mayors Against Illegal Guns is being deceptive by claiming their truck would tour Miami at one time but showed up at another. Are they worried about a little counter-protesting or maybe the truck of truth pulling up behind them? Who knows but being deceptive certainly is par for the course with Bloomberg’s little organization.

Why Taxation is Theft

OK, libertarians often talk about how taxation is theft while statists call the libertarians crazy. The statists don’t understand why libertarians would call taxation a form of theft and honestly many libertarians who make the statement that taxation is theft don’t fully understand why. Thus we have a lot of people with a misunderstanding walking around and I feel it necessary to explain the concept of taxation being theft. Really this post is me being selfish, instead of having to retype this argument every time I make it I’m just going to link back to this.

The foundation of libertarian philosophy is founded on something we like to call the non-aggression principal. The non-aggression principal states all aggression is illegitimate. Aggression is defined as any initiation of force, be it physical or simply a threat, against another person or their property (which I’ve explained is actually an extension of a person). This means any time somebody initiates force or coerces somebody to perform an action it is seen as illegitimate by libertarian philosophy.

Taxation is the collection of money by the state. This collection isn’t voluntary though as not paying money to the state will lead to them either confiscating your property or placing you in prison. The threat of property confiscation and prison time are forms of aggression and thus the action of taxation is seen as illegitimate by libertarian philosophy. When one party uses aggression to obtain property of another party the act is called theft and we say the first party stole from the second party. For example if I threatened to kidnap you and hold you in my basement for 10 years if you don’t pay me 10% of your earning every year most people would consider my act theft. Thus comes the phrase taxation is theft.

Libertarians aren’t claiming taxation as theft because we’re greedy. The claim is made because the entire concept goes against the very foundation of libertarian philosophy, the non-aggression principal.

Now you statists can stop calling us crazy when we claim taxation is theft. You are more than free to make an attempt of arguing for social benefits of taxation but please stop screaming, “YOU’RE FUCKING CRAZY!” We’re getting sick of hearing it and it makes you look like a moron who lacks a real argument against our statement. Those identifying as libertarians please understand the reason behind the phrase, “Taxation is theft.” You’re not helping libertarianism by making statements you can’t explain, it just makes us look crazy to the statists.